Not my imagination

I am not a girl who gets sad when diagnosed with a medical problem. Every time my doctor tells me there is something wrong with me, I feel great relief because I now have name for what is making me feel the way I felt. With a diagnosis I can see a path for getting better.

Knowing that I had clinical depression was wonderful. I now knew that my brain was a bit broken. My brain chemistry was out of whack. I had felt like I was weak. Couldn’t cope. Broken. Overreacting. Stressed out...but now…now I knew that it wasn’t me being unable to deal with life. My brain was just not working right.

Here’s what you may not know about starting antidepressants. Things can get worse before they get better. I thought I had hit rock bottom of personal insanity, then I started Prozac. For a week I was worse. I couldn’t focus. I cried more. I simply couldn’t eat. I lost seven pounds in a week. I couldn’t sleep.

I had many, many moments when I thought that the cure was worse than the ill, but I started seeing little improvements. I worried less and had moments of joy. I should have felt hopeless, but I saw that I was getting better.  I finally begged my doctor for some Ambien so I could finally sleep.

Sleep helped. A lot.

I still had days when I couldn’t get off the couch. All I wanted to do was lie on the couch and stare into space. I couldn’t even pay attention to TV. The TV would get turned to E! and before I knew it I was watching hours of “Married to Jonas”, and I didn’t care.